Is there a real Euphoria-alternative?

[Hildrande]

flare scales directly with mastery, so in later tiers it will be come the best talent available.

Do Stellar Flare scale more with Mastery than the other damage sources?

[Deleted]

The tiny change in flare's direct damage aside, it always does the 'same' damage, whenever you cast it.
Wrath and Starfire gain more damage the further into their side the eclipse bar has moved. At one point their dpct breaks even. At that point you switch from using one to the other. If at that point flare has a higher dpct it is worth using (over using no talent - I'm not saying it's the best talent in its row). That's how I understand it from the tooltip and a bit of gameplay.

@Teryx: It should scale as much with the eclipse bonus damage as Starfire does at Lunar peak, and Wrath does at Solar peak (with 100% of your eclipse bonus damage), it should scale twice as well as those two spells if the eclipse bar is in the middle (wrath and starfire at 50% of eclipse bonus damage, and flare still at 100% of eclipse bonus damage). So it scales at the same rate with mastery as other spells do, it just interacts differently with the whole eclipse bonus damage mechanic. That's how I understand it.
And if that's the way it works, then that talent makes perfect sense. Maybe it's just weak on the numbers, but the concept looks good to me.

/edited for clarity

[huth]

@Teryx: It should scale as much with the eclipse bonus damage as Starfire does at Lunar peak, and Wrath does at Solar peak (with 100% of your eclipse bonus damage), it should scale twice as well as those two spells if the eclipse bar is in the middle (wrath and starfire at 50% of eclipse bonus damage, and flare still at 100% of eclipse bonus damage). So it scales at the same rate with mastery as other spells do, it just interacts differently with the whole eclipse bonus damage mechanic. That's how I understand it.
And if that's the way it works, then that talent makes perfect sense. Maybe it's just weak on the numbers, but the concept looks good to me.

If it still works like Celestalon told us, it scales multiplicatively with both Eclipses. Meaning it gets (100% + half of your eclipse bonus)^2 at 0 Energy.
In theory, it should then get (100% + Eclipse Bonus)^2 in CA, but during beta there was a bug with CA for a long time where it got no Eclipse bonus at all. If it had worked, it would have been trivially easy to get to the point where Flare did more direct damage than Starfire during CA.

[Deleted]

Wow, so that's why the wording is so vague on the flare tooltip, lol :|
Thanks for clarifying. That does indeed change the value of flare over the expansion.

[mercychan]

My point was that even if you get best gear last tier and your StF will come as best talent available, blizz will nerf it so its on par with other talents. That is their logic and idea behind new talents, so they are not mandatory rather choice.

If that were the case then they would have nerfed Incarnation and HotW back in t16 because we never used any other talents, but that never happened (for a whole year). They also haven't brought down Euphoria or Incarnation yet this tier, so there's reason to assume they'll never nerf StF in later tiers.

[huth]

If that were the case then they would have nerfed Incarnation and HotW back in t16 because we never used any other talents, but that never happened (for a whole year). They also haven't brought down Euphoria or Incarnation yet this tier, so there's reason to assume they'll never nerf StF in later tiers.

Those where only slightly better. Enough so the high end would always use them, but not so much that you couldn't play something else at a reasonable level.
Back in BC, people didn't care much about a 5% difference in output. Now they will claim something is useless if it is 0.5% worse.

If StFl goes completely out of whack, it will be nerfed. Just being slightly better than the other two, though, likely won't cause a nerf.

[Juvencus]

Those where only slightly better. Enough so the high end would always use them, but not so much that you couldn't play something else at a reasonable level.
Back in BC, people didn't care much about a 5% difference in output. Now they will claim something is useless if it is 0.5% worse.

If StFl goes completely out of whack, it will be nerfed. Just being slightly better than the other two, though, likely won't cause a nerf.

Because you had specs ranging from useless to support (innervate, Vampiric touch bots) to proper damage dealers. Now everyone is pretty much in the same 10-20% range of damage. Smaller range of worst-best means the incremental steps between them mean more (a millimeter means more in the centimeter, than the centimeter in the meter).

Also not sure how StFl's tooltip is confusing. The phrase "at it's strongest" is self-contained. The spell is at it's strongest in the x situation compared to other situations with the same spell. Nothing to do with other spells.

Edit: Not that I agree with the "x stat is completely useless" statements but most of the time there is a significant distinction.

[Deleted]

Also not sure how StFl's tooltip is confusing. The phrase "at it's strongest" is self-contained. The spell is at it's strongest in the x situation compared to other situations with the same spell. Nothing to do with other spells.

"benefits from both Lunar and Solar Eclipses"
Maybe it's me, but the terminology Blizzard uses in their tooltips is so fucking inconsistent. There are no Lunar and Solar Eclipses according to the Eclipse tooltip. So that's the most naive means of trying to understand the eclipse mechanic.
On the other side of the theorycrafting spectrum there is the sine wave explanation by Cyous (i think) on the official forums, which I find easy to understand. Eclipse is a damage bonus that depending on the state of the eclipse bar shifts from one spell school to the other. The line between S. Eclipse and L. Eclipse is arbitrary, and comes down to the implications the mechanic has on your gameplay. Mechnicwise there is not "a Lunar Eclipse" and "a Solar Eclipse". For example, Wrath does benefit from Lunar Eclipse as well (unless Lunar Peak). It just doesn't make sense to use Wrath on the Lunar side most of the time, because the damage bonus is shifted so far to the Lunar side that you'd use the Lunar spells.

I'm sorry, but saying the tooltip is not confusing is naive to say the least. Your argument is like a noxxic guide telling you that crit is the best stat for every class because crits do double damage...

[thegoodrogue]

*Tips Fedora*
Did someone say Euphoria?

[huth]

I'm sorry, but saying the tooltip is not confusing is naive to say the least. Your argument is like a noxxic guide telling you that crit is the best stat for every class because crits do double damage...

It's not confusing if you understand moonkin terminology. It is very confusing and borderline incomprehensible when you don't.

It's the same reason Engineers shouldn't write operating manuals. Nobody but them would be able to understand anything.

[Deleted]

It's not confusing if you understand moonkin terminology. It is very confusing and borderline incomprehensible when you don't.

It's the same reason Engineers shouldn't write operating manuals. Nobody but them would be able to understand anything.

I understand the sine wave explanation easily
'Benefits from both eclipses' plus the ingame eclipse explanation is like saying 'yeah that's just the way it is, don't ask' though. I'm not trying to pick a fight, but do you guys seriously wanna tell me that you understood 'benefits from both eclipses' as 'take the damage bonus from each spell school at that point in time and multiply them to get the damage bonus for solar flare at that point in time' instantly?

So lunar eclipse and solar eclipse are agreed upon terms in the player base? What do they mean exactly? Just being on one side, or the damage bonus of a specific spell school at a certain time, or something entirely different?

[huth]

I said it's not confusing, not that it is a simple, complete, straight forward explanation. For that matter, few tooltips really tell you the full story behind them.

Lunar Eclipse is the part of the mechanic that affects arcane spells. Solar Eclipse is the part that affects nature spells(which for some reason now consist of solar lasers and throwing tiny suns at the enemy in addition to Hurricane...)

So if a spell benefits from "both Eclipses", that simply means it somehow gains both damage modifiers. To really know how they work, you need to have followed Celestalon's twitter during beta, though. Star Surge also benefits from both Eclipses, but only uses the higher one, which is why the "strongest" part is in the tooltip of StFl.

[Deleted]

Yeah you're right. I guess I just get annoyed easily with not knowing how stuff really works. Thanks for taking the time to explain

So even while you are on the solar side you have a rather weak lunar eclipse active? Is that how you use the term?

[Juvencus]

I understand the sine wave explanation easily
'Benefits from both eclipses' plus the ingame eclipse explanation is like saying 'yeah that's just the way it is, don't ask' though. I'm not trying to pick a fight, but do you guys seriously wanna tell me that you understood 'benefits from both eclipses' as 'take the damage bonus from each spell school at that point in time and multiply them to get the damage bonus for solar flare at that point in time' instantly?

So lunar eclipse and solar eclipse are agreed upon terms in the player base? What do they mean exactly? Just being on one side, or the damage bonus of a specific spell school at a certain time, or something entirely different?

Well to be honest, you don't need to know how the spell does it, to use it. All you need to know is that it benefits from both eclipses at the same time and more so when they are equal, meaning the middle of the bar.

Is that any different from knowing that Starfire benefits more from Lunar, Wrath benefits more from Solar and Starsurge benefits from both equally (but not the same time) ?

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah you're right. I guess I just get annoyed easily with not knowing how stuff really works. Thanks for taking the time to explain

So even while you are on the solar side you have a rather weak lunar eclipse active? Is that how you use the term?

That's true. Eclipses overlap up to the point where one of them reaches peak. Kinda like : 30%,0% - 25%,5% - 15%,15% - 5%,25% - 0%,30% but obviously in a linear fashion, not in steps.

[Deleted]

Well to be honest, you don't need to know how the spell does it, to use it. All you need to know is that it benefits from both eclipses at the same time and more so when they are equal, meaning the middle of the bar.

Is that any different from knowing that Starfire benefits more from Lunar, Wrath benefits more from Solar and Starsurge benefits from both equally (but not the same time) ?

(For me) the discussion started in post #18 where I was arguing that Stellar Flare does conceptually make sense, and that it should not be used whenever but exactly at a balanced eclipse bar. Although I made some mistakes with the way I understood the exact way StFl works (and the implications it has on scaling with mastery), I still stand by my point that - given the right numbers tuning - StFl has a very distinct and meaningful use, because contrary to all (?) other spells it benefits from a balanced eclipse bar.
The way I see it, it should not be worth casting close to either peak, because of the concentrated damage bonus into either nuke, but should be worth casting while balanced.

That's true. Eclipses overlap up to the point where one of them reaches peak. Kinda like : 30%,0% - 25%,5% - 15%,15% - 5%,25% - 0%,30% but obviously in a linear fashion, not in steps.

Thanks, that will make it easier for me to understand the discussions
The use of the terms solar/lunar eclipse had me confused.

[huth]

It's pretty much a relic from how it used to work before. Part of why it wouldn't make sense to a newcomer.

[Juvencus]

(For me) the discussion started in post #18 where I was arguing that Stellar Flare does conceptually make sense, and that it should not be used whenever but exactly at a balanced eclipse bar. Although I made some mistakes with the way I understood the exact way StFl works (and the implications it has on scaling with mastery), I still stand by my point that - given the right numbers tuning - StFl has a very distinct and meaningful use, because contrary to all (?) other spells it benefits from a balanced eclipse bar.
The way I see it, it should not be worth casting close to either peak, because of the concentrated damage bonus into either nuke, but should be worth casting while balanced.

And that's how it's intended to be used. Keep the dot up by refreshing in the middle of the bar. You shouldn't cast it anywhere else, not only because of the damage change but also because you are keeping yourself from casting something more beneficial to your damage. Now this is regardless of how much the damage difference of StFl is depending on eclipse state. 1.1 is essentially 1 and yet bigger, so technically the tooltip is not misleading. Sure it's a technicality but I'm not sure that will change, given Blizzard's changes to rotations to be more forgiving (it's forgiving as to you can cast it whenever with no real damage cost but makes mastering it harder because not optimizing harms the damage of other spells). However an increase in StFl's viability with more mastery is certainly possible but not related to the above.

It's pretty much a relic from how it used to work before. Part of why it wouldn't make sense to a newcomer.

I believe it's a necessity to keep the distinction clear and keep referring to them as separate, regardless of overlap, or else you risk giving rise to threads along the lines of "what do I cast when my bar is orange/blue".

No matter the overlap, I don't believe anyone here would recommend casting Starfire in Solar and Wrath in Lunar be the person is a veteran or a newcomer.

[huth]

I believe it's a necessity to keep the distinction clear and keep referring to them as separate, regardless of overlap, or else you risk giving rise to threads along the lines of "what do I cast when my bar is orange/blue".

No matter the overlap, I don't believe anyone here would recommend casting Starfire in Solar and Wrath in Lunar be the person is a veteran or a newcomer.

I was talking more about the terms themselves than their use.

[xtramuscle]

The problem with flare is it isn't designed around single target, it is better on 3+. However as soon as you add even a second target you can no longer only apply it in the center of the two eclipses. By the time you add a third target you're half way up the bar. Now in order to make this less punishing, they scaled the damage. So the difference between PERFECT mid-center casting, and horrible half way to eclipse casting is so minuscule that it doesn't matter, thus completely voiding the main concept of the spell. Pair that with it being over nerfed on beta, and its really not worth considering until HIGH levels of mastery, where it'll go from being useless, to on par, and then will become very strong (on the condition it then isn't nerfed back in line again).

[timmytompadderham]

this thread is disgusting sorry none has common sense so I will break it down for u mongos
increase to dot damage=better for multidot so basically all but butccher maybe want euphoria on imperator to kill the mages/big add fast.
stellar flare is undertuned gg it's the DoC of this expac
use common sense and the class plays itself you don;t ned a 10page thread dicussing an obvious talent